toughness
The Outstanding Ohioans show, Episode 54-Don’t Bureaucrat This One, Conversation with guest host Angus Macleod
This show brings the audience great things Ohioans are doing to make their communities, the state, the region, and the world a better place as entrepreneurs, leaders, historical and popular culture figures.
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Yes indeed, I am now using the word bureaucrat as a verb. In this conversation with Angus Macleod, we talked about several topics. These topics included:
- Leadership philosophies
- Delegation
- what makes working in sports, recreation, and wellness so compelling and fulfilling
- In customer service, strive not to have staff bureaucrat customer requests as much as possible.
- Ownership
- Connection
- Apathy
Thank you for taking the time to listen to the show. Please leave a review on ITunes or Stitcher, or email me at ronsiliko@gmail.com. Please refer any recommended future guests to my email.
5 great books for working on the personal development of young student athletes
What I like about these books the most is the focus on whole-person development for both coaches and student-athletes. Great talking points, strategies, and frameworks for getting clarity, focus, and initiative toward being the best person you can be.
The Winner’s Manual by Jim Tressel
Toughness: Developing True Strength On and Off the Court by Jay Bilas
The Golden Whistle Going Beyond The Journey to Coaching Success by Jim Burson
InsideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives by Joe Ehrmann
Lead for God’s Sake! A parable for finding the heart of leadership by Todd Gongwer
I would love to hear your recommendations on other books. Thank you for reading.
The Power of Outside Affirmation, Can We Serve In This Way?
Over the past year, I have found my coaching heavily influenced by Joe Ehrmann‘s book Inside-Out Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives, Todd Gongwer‘s book Leading for God’s Sake: A Parable For Finding The Heart Of Leadership, and Jay Bilas‘s book Toughness: Developing True Strength On And Off The Court. Each of these books challenge the reader to think about WHY they are doing anything.
As coaches, we have to think about having a WHY that transcends wins and losses. There is not a singular correct WHY, but coaches need to think about the reasons WHY they coach. Are these reasons for coaching transformational, or transactional (Joe Ehrmann’s work)? Is your coaching transforming and improving lives in a positive way, or only creating interactions interested in wins and the player doing what he/she is told?
I have recently defined my WHY as: “To develop positive character through my platform by teaching the fundamentals that will translate to future endeavors”.
As I was watching this video from the Cleveland FCA on Leading For God’s Sake, I started thinking about my WHY and how the so-called “little things” are so crucial to success. If I can assume the majority of coaches are using their platform to positively develop people, can coaches serve each other by providing outside affirmation to their players? I think all coaches realize from time to time, our players may begin to “tune us out”. As coaches, I think most people do not recognize the little things, the dirty work, the tough plays that lead to team success beyond the highlights of the shooter, the pitcher, the home run hitter, the touchdown scorer, the QB sacker.
What power would there be if an opposing coach came up to one of your players as said, “You are the best screener we play against, you do a great job getting your shooters open”. “You always take the toughest offensive player and battle him for every point”. “You play unbelievably great help defense, you drawing three charges in that last game changed the momentum to your team”. “I heard you are in the top three academically of your class, you are the epitome of a student-athlete”. TALK ABOUT AFFIRMING THE RIGHT THINGS! This would only help and encourage players to continue to develop and enhance these little-recognized strengths. We would truly be serving the sport and young people by doing this. As coaches, we need all players to feel valued in their roles and in their strengths.
In developing these coaching partnerships, I envision the following process: ask permission of your fellow coach; pull athlete aside in warmups for affirmation; ask fellow coach to do the same. If we could serve each other as coaches in this way, think about the power of transferring this to everyday life….we are quick to complain, but do we go above and beyond to thank the people that serve us? This could be the beginning of a whole revolution….professing our gratitude and respect, that’s my dream anyway. We all know people who already serve others with the compliments, and we all know those people who are quick to complain as well.
There are some questions to this process, and I don’t know if I have the answers. These include:
-we are competing to win, can we risk building up a player before a game?
-are we affirming the right things? Should both coaches be present for this affirmation?
Tough choice….am I hurting my team’s chances of winning by boosting another team’s confidence? Can I trust the other coach to affirm my player, or do I need to be present? I have witnessed and read stories about this happening already, but usually only the stars receive it. Again, I believe the guidelines could be laid out and permission given before the warmups begin.
I cannot wait to get back coaching on the sidelines to do this someday, I hope others think about this proposal and consider it.
I would love to hear your thoughts. Have a great Monday!
Powerful messages that make the journey seem purposeful….
This past Tuesday, I heard two messages that were so powerful….that boosted my energy like a rocket fuel booster.
Ryan and I began a custom over the last month and a half of walking to preschool, then I go to work from there. It is about a one-mile walk, which is a challenge for my almost three-year old. I frequently tell him how proud I am of him for getting this valuable exercise and his toughness to complete the journey. On the rare instances when he says he wants me to carry him, I praise his perseverance and tell him he is doing what no other kid in his class is doing, which makes him special.
Words cannot describe how much I enjoy getting to spend this time with him. I was not able to walk with him to school today, and it really bothered me. We have great conversations and I have so much pride in our connection.
I know Ryan enjoys the time as well, because he always asks to walk and he wants me to take him to school. During our Tuesday walk, out of the blue, he said “I love walking to school with you Daddy”. I was so choked up and honored that it has impacted him this way.
This was a great moment, and I was on cloud nine. Later in the day, one of my university student staff came into my office to chat. I treasure when Suze comes in to speak to me, she is a rock star on our staff. She is always there for the team, is enthusiastic, takes great pride in her work, and accomplishes remarkable things. She is a person who is a beacon for others.
She shared with me that she recently had a valuable “ah-ha” moment. She realized last week that she was responsible for her attitude and choices, and no one else.
HOW EMPOWERING! When you hear someone own their life in this way (especially because you are trying to live your life that way), and not willing to give into “victim thinking”, it is INSPIRATIONAL!
I don’t know if I helped Suze get to that state of mind or not, but we have spent enough time together that I believe I contributed at least in some small way.
Hearing these two messages really made me feel like I am living a life of purpose and serving. I am thankful that they shared their thoughts with me.
I would love to hear what messages have inspired you recently. Take care.
Ron
Blending realistic expectations with an uncommon sense of purpose and work ethic, taking care of your own business on the basketball court
I had the pleasure of taking Ryan and myself to my old high school to watch the Buckeye Lady Bucks (can there be Lady Bucks?) under the leadership of my old basketball coach Randy Haury. I have done this the last three years whenever I have been in Litchfield visiting my parents during basketball season. He has always been very gracious about letting me have some input into practice, which I appreciate tremendously. I hope my input provides some value, and more importantly gives the players another voice to hear reinforce sound concepts.
I got a kick out of watching Ryan on the sidelines during the practice. He was very animated and verbally into the action. I did not understand everything he was saying, but I loved seeing the enthusiasm. I enjoyed getting him into the athletic environment so he gets acclimated to what happens.
Coach Haury has a young team with low numbers of upperclass students and little varsity game experience. An outstanding win/loss record may be difficult to achieve, but he is looking forward to the journey and the learning that will take place. He believes if they can be successful fundamentally, they will have a chance to be very competitive.
During practice, I did some coaching on fundamental skills. However, I thought the area for greatest improvement was in team communication. The first thing I noticed during drill work was there was very little communication amongst teammates. This team has NO chance to be competitive without positive basketball communication between teammates. Communication is just as critical a skill as offense and defense, and in fact is the only constant on both ends of the floor. The communication needs to be supportive and affirming, as well as tactical.
I think the team’s most talented player, Sara, has a chance to be an outstanding leader and solid player. We had the discussion about being responsible for Sara being the team’s most competitive and hardest worker so she would have leadership credibility with her teammates. She has a tough choice to make, be a nice teammate or a leader who may ruffle some feathers. I hope she makes the leadership choice, I saw some good examples in practice that I really liked.
The communication aspect is really important for this team, because they need a sense of purpose and develop an exceptional practice work ethic so they are getting better everyday. Improvement for game performance will not happen without this occurring. This is a collective responsibility that needs to be embraced by those players committed to excellence.
I went to practice on a Saturday morning. I am curious to see how many players picked up basketball AT ALL before practice on Monday afternoon. How many players thought about the game? The answer may provide some indication on the level of commitment the team currently has.
When a lack of win/loss success or lack of playing time, there becomes an immediate reaction that it must be the coach’s fault. There is a serious lack of personal accountability within the players and parents when these issues arise. I hope players can consult this list and see if they are doing these things before they begin to blame others.
What every basketball player can and cannot do
- Did you make 100 game speed shots/day?
- Are you in better cardio shape than anyone else?
- Are you playing good defense, including help defense and boxing out?
- Are you communicating on the floor?
- Are you turning the ball over?
- Are you pushing your teammates by going hard in every drill and scrimmage?
- Are you pushing yourself hard, or pacing yourself during practice and games?
- Are you making things easy or difficult for your opponent?
- Are you trying to make things better yourself, or are you blaming others?
Being part of a team can be a great thing, or it can be a terrible thing. My encouragement is to look inward to be personal accountable FIRST, walk the walk, and then you have the credibility to talk the talk. Come from a position of strength and commitment.
I would love to hear your comments.
R
Compliments, Constructive Criticism, and Silence
I recently read the GREAT autobiography on Pat Summitt called Sum It Up. I would recommend this book to anyone in a leadership or coaching position, as well as a parent. This book details her amazing journey growing up as a farm kid in rural Tennessee to starting her college playing and coaching career as Title IX was coming to the forefront. She succeeded by any measure and overcame tremendous personal setbacks to reach the pinnacle of her profession. In recent years, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and had to relinquish her coaching position at the height of her powers.
I knew she was a demanding coach, but this book really inspired me to work harder and demand more of myself and people I work with. Her ability to get her players to become physically and mentally tough, be fundamentally outstanding, overcome odds, and use their gifts to blend into outstanding teams is at a rare level.
Her demanding style is referenced throughout the book, but a specific tactic that I want to implement soon hit me like a hammer. She was referencing a time in her career when she felt her players were only hearing her criticisms, and not her compliments. To get her players to hear both equally, she instructed everyone in the program, when receiving a compliment, to say “two points”. This acknowledgement of receiving the compliment made the impact greater. When receiving a criticism, the recipient was to say “rebound”. This served to demonstrate the recipient heard the criticism, and was going to try to bounce back, i.e. rebound, to take action to correct the issue.
Regardless of where we are in life, I haven’t found a person yet who can honestly say they give and take constructive criticism as well as they would like. Some people only want to hear compliments. Some people only want to hear how they can improve. Some people don’t want to be “bothered” with anything at all.
It is a special talent to be able to give valuable criticism, and perhaps even more so to be able to take criticism from others without getting defensive. I personally struggle this one the most, especially with my wife. I am working everyday to develop the toughness to improve in this area.
I would love to hear your comments in any of these topics today. Take care.
Warmest Regards,
Ron
How can I be so weak….dealing with the Ryan Revolution?
Recently, Ryan has been going through what we can only hope is the “near-3” stage. He has cried more in the last couple of months than in his entire life. He has also become very independent, demanding and stubborn.
I recently read in the great Leigh Montville book Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero a story about friend of Mr. Williams who collaborated to create a sports camp. This friend’s favorite saying was that “the four most important words in American are I can“.
I love this saying….it inspires me. When I first read it, I belly laughed because one of Ryan’s pet sayings right now is “I can do it myself”. He is fiercely independent and wants to do everything himself right or wrong. I have decided that unless he will physically harm himself, I am going to let him succeed or fail on his own.
One of the funniest (and frustrating) part of this independence is that he will actually re-do or re-create a situation himself so he can say he did it. One example, we went to the bathroom for another round of potty training (doing very well, thank you…). He insisted on ripping off his diaper, and when I moved the stool in front of the toilet, he flipped! He said, “I can do it myself”, proceeded to grab the stool, move it back to its original location, and then put it in exactly the same spot I had. He did it himself.
The point of this post….is that I get extremely frustrated with myself upon instant or later reflection. There are times I am so weak…..so soft about my temper flipping on and getting mad at him. When he doesn’t want to listen or do what I say, when he insists on doing something I KNOW is wrong, it triggers me. I KNOW I need to take a deep breath and relax, and I KNOW I should be doing this when I am grabbing him or talking strongly to him. I KNOW I need patience and calm. I need to be able to explain, and explain, and explain, and explain while staying calm so he can learn.
To improve my reactions, I am listening daily to some of favorite books, Toughness by Jay Bilas (referenced in this previous post), and InsideOut Coaching by Joe Ehrmann. I want Ryan to learn how to remain calm so he is able to think about a proper solution, I need to model this behavior better when facing adversity. This is my biggest parenting challenge to date.
I would love to hear from parents what is in your toolkit to help you stay calm.
-Ron
Book Review of “Toughness: Developing True Strength On And Off The Court by Jay Bilas
Over the last few months, I have greatly enjoyed reading and re-reading the book “Toughness: Developing True Strength On and Off the Court” by Jay Bilas. While the book contains many, many great basketball stories, there are several other moving stories that demonstrate how mental toughness has led to amazing outcomes. I shared in a recent blog post that I listened to this book with my son Ryan as we drove to Baltimore from Ohio.
In this blog post, I have linked my notes detailing key phrases and key concepts. The anecdotes Bilas’s shares serve to amplify these notes in tremendous detail. I have posted the Book notes in a Mindmap form below (see red links). They will appear as PDF’s, and you will be able to enlarge the pictures as needed for reading.
If you are interesting in reading insights into Coach K from Duke, it’s in here. Want to hear great stories about parenting….in here. Want to hear courageous cancer battles with doctors, nurses, and patients as partners….it’s in here. Stories about demanding teachers, mentors, and teammates….you guessed it.
If you are looking for tips that you can use personally for a more rewarding and productive life, or in your mentoring of others, I highly recommend this book. If you are a sports fan and are curious how success happens behind the scenes, you will love this content.
Click here to see my notes on the INTRODUCTION section of the book.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter One, “TRUST”.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Two, “PREPARATION”, part one.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Two, “PREPARATION”, part two.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Three, “COURAGE”.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Four, “COMMUNICATION”.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Five, “PERSISTENCE”.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Six, “NEXT PLAY”.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Seven, “COMMITMENT”.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Eight, “ACCEPTANCE”, part one.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Eight, “ACCEPTANCE”, part two.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Eight, “ACCEPTANCE”, part three.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Nine, “RESILIENCE”.
Click here to see my notes on Chapter Ten, “SELF-EVALUATION”.
Click here to see my notes on the EPILOGUE
If you have enjoyed reading my notes, you can get the hardcover or paperback version of the book, click here. For Kindle, click here.
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Here are a couple of my most viewed posts.
Click here for my book review of Toughness: Developing True Strength On and Off the Court by Jay Bilas
Click here for my book review of The Power of Negative Thinking by Bob Knight
Click here for my book review of Bo’s Lasting Lessons: The Legendary Coach Teaches the Timeless Fundamentals of Leadership
The Lonnnnggg Drive to Maryland….for an awesome reason!
Last week, Ryan and I took a mini-vacation to suburban Baltimore,
Maryland to visit my brother Kevin. Seeing my brother with the physical distance between us is special enough, but this visit was
extra special.
As is my MO, I listened the to recently released book “Toughness:
Developing Strength On and Off The Court” by Jay Bilas (kindle version). Although many references used are basketball-related, the concepts on developing mental toughness can be applied to all areas of life. College basketball fans will get tremendous joy and insight about the inside game as well.
Mr. Bilas has great references about his parents and wonderful story about a cancer survivor at the end of the book related to toughness. There is no question that toughness is needed to succeed in life, but is not too often defined in such an extraordinary package.
Almost two months ago, Kevin’s girlfriend Tricia gave birth to their first child, Logan Joseph. He is a handsome fellow! He’s extra special because he makes me a first-time uncle, Jen a first-time aunt, and Ryan/Sawyer’s 1st first-cousin. Typical of his age, pretty much all he does is eat, sleep, and poop. But when he smiles at you….you feel like a million bucks.
Ryan was very friendly and gentle with Logan. He clearly loves his cousin.
Ryan and Logan “cheesing” for the camera
I shared with Kevin and Tricia my opinion that it is hard to get motivated to do things when you are babysitting because when your child sleeps, you often lay down as well. They didn’t disagree, but also attributed this “laziness” to the fact this is their summer vacation as well because they work in the school system.
Because of this, Ryan and I were often left to our own devices. We took walks, visited playgrounds, rode his bicycle, and read books. Kevin and Tricia were very generous with the food they prepared for us, and we enjoyed our meals. Uncle Kevin, Ryan, and I went to a park one night and Uncle pushed Ryan on the swings while I got in some pickup basketball games ( I represented myself quite well despite being the oldest player on the court, thank you).
We were able to go to a couple of neat places. We visited the Howard County Conservancy , which was an old farm preserved for future generations. We enjoyed a great hike in pastures with some great wildlife, went into the nature center, saw old barns and tractors, and visited the chicken coop and goats.
On our last day, I tried to play to Ryan’s affinity for trains by visiting the historic http://www.borail.org/Ellicott-City-Station.aspx. His favorite thing to do was ringing the station bell.
On Thursday night and early Friday morning, we packed up and got on the road for our 9+ return to Ohio. On the whole, it was a great time. We can’t wait for our future visits when the boys (Sawyer has yet to meet Logan) can be more interactive in their play. I also learned some tricks in helping Ryan sleep when we travel to new places.
I am so thankful we got to do this trip. Tricia and Kevin are doing great as new parents, Logan definitely hit the parent lottery with these two! This post will help me remember it forever.
Would love to hear about your family road trips!
“Starting is half-finished.” -Robert D Smith author of 20,000 Thousand Days and Counting
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